


we want nothing but each other

by talonyth



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Assassin Hinata and King Kageyama, I'm Bad At Tagging, Kagehina Exchange 2015, M/M, They are really sappy, they are also really happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:39:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5465144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talonyth/pseuds/talonyth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3887227">i wear nothing but a mask</a>. </p><p>“You seem well attuned. You’ve been together for a long time, I assume?”</p><p>“Our whole life,” they both say in unison, meeting each other’s eyes with slight surprise. Then again, it shouldn’t be. It’s true after all. Their new life had started with meeting each other and they’d always been by each other’s side ever since.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we want nothing but each other

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [i wear nothing but a mask](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3887227) by [talonyth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talonyth/pseuds/talonyth). 



> dear #26, 
> 
> i was very happy to have received a request like yours for cuddly and warm kagehinas and i hope i managed to make you smile with this fic! forgive me for making this a little self-indulgent by making it a sequel of a previous work of mine but i had been struck with inspiration for this right away at your request and tried my best to make this understandable even if you haven't read the other fic! i hope it has worked and that you will enjoy it, have the most wonderful holidays ⭐

Through small cracks in the patched curtain, the sun tries to peek into their room. Hinata groans in dismay of this audacity and feels like Kageyama’s grumpiness in the morning has become his own by now. There have been times when Hinata liked getting up early in the morning, full of energy. Perhaps it is settling down like this that makes him feel too comfortable to still feel the need to shine at dawn.  
Next to him, said grumpy person makes a noise Hinata can’t discern but he gave up listening to Kageyama while asleep since… he doesn’t quite remember when that mumbling became a pleasant background noise for waking up.

Hinata closes his eyes again, drawing a little closer to Kageyama, trying to find Kageyama’s feet entangled in the heavy quilt he’s covered in by sneaking his own in and wiggling his toes. They are nowhere. Hinata feels hurt in his pride and snuggles into Kageyama’s back, sliding his legs over the mattress. Kageyama mumbles something again, Hinata taking his chance and slipping his foot between Kageyama’s for the other to grumble and turn his head around. 

“...You awake already?” His voice is hoarse. Kageyama really isn’t one for mornings. Hinata’s reply is a single hum but he knows Kageyama can tell what this means. Their mornings mostly look and sound the same. Been so for almost a year now. Hinata hardly remembers the times where they didn’t know whether they’d still be alive at this point. It feels unreal, thinking back to it.

Good riddance. 

\--

“You look better,” Hinata said, handing Kageyama a glass of water. Certainly, his small and dark room was barely something worthy a king, let alone his narrow bed but Kageyama seemed to be satisfied. Less strained than when Hinata met him the first time, back on that masquerade ball; content almost. 

His situation couldn’t be any worse, wounded as a runaway king, about to be murdered by his own subordinates. They sure didn’t want to save money, hiring two assassins even. Perhaps more he thankfully hadn’t crossed paths with. Knowing that, Hinata didn’t know whether he would have been able to stay as calm as Kageyama did. Being wounded on top of that, experiencing death as close as having his throat nearly slit and running away with someone who had been supposed to kill him as well. _Him._

How strong could someone be? To Hinata, Kageyama’s strength had passed every natural limit. 

“I never felt better,” Kageyama said, ease swinging along in his voice as he gulped down the entire glass in one go. His hand reached up to the bandage covering the entirety of his neck, fingertips grazing along the edges of it. He’d done this the past days like a grown habit but Hinata never dared to say anything. Didn’t know how to put it. 

“It’ll probably leave a scar,” he ultimately breathed what he couldn’t for days because he wasn’t a doctor - he had been an assassin. Ironically someone to kill others but instead, he had saved Kageyama. Patched him up as well as he could. But he wasn’t an expert, to put it nicely. He knew he wasn’t. Countless scars on his body left behind by trying to fix himself over and over again proved it to him. 

And yet, he couldn’t simply let Kageyama die. He had set his mind on escaping, on changing his fate - and Kageyama’s. Almost lost him too, the same night. He wondered now why he hadn’t decided to do so earlier. Before he killed too many to still feel something. How this former monarch, so tall, so proud and yet so very lonely, had managed to move what he had lost.

They had both been living lives of pretense, trapped by responsibilities and regret, by agony and helplessness on their own. Hinata never believed in things like fate because it continued to disappoint him. To disillusion him. Took all of his hopes when it repeatedly gave him nothing but pain until he felt nothing at all, solely a speck of what he once used to be still there on demand. Smiles and charming words filled with an energy he no longer had. 

Those were the only things that helped him approach Kageyama. And he sparked those. Made Hinata want to be like that once more. 

“It better will,” Kageyama then replied, much to Hinata’s surprise, “I want to be taken seriously and seen as a threat. They better know out there that I don’t kick the bucket as easily as they hope.” 

Truly, there was no one with as much strength as Kageyama in Hinata’s eyes. A grin spreads on his lips. His feelings, they burn, insides aflame. A new life with Kageyama, everything reset as if they had just been born anew, it did sound like an appealing future to consider. 

\--

Nowadays, every morning is filled with Kageyama grumbling, him getting upset about Hinata’s cold feet but pulling him closer in the same breath. How is Hinata supposed to leave the bed then? He could laze around for a little longer. The tavern wouldn’t open until Suga awakes anyway - and he is typically even less of a morning person than Kageyama is. 

Still drowsy, Hinata almost falls asleep again buried under layers of his quilt and Kageyama’s filled with his warmth. More than comfortable, he would call this feeling home. It has been for such a long time, ever since he’d first gotten to know him. Perhaps even when they were still dancing out on a masquerade ball none of them had wanted to attend to, though Kageyama’s hands were cold and nearly unearthly soft, his presence still felt like something Hinata has only found a word for after a good while they had left the capital behind. 

Kageyama would probably get upset if he knew Hinata is thinking about this. They had sworn not to, never again once they leave. But this isn’t a particularly bad memory. Even if it doesn’t belong to their lives now any longer, Hinata still occasionally thinks back to it. Remembers how nicely Kageyama smelled and how pretty his face looked in the dim light of the moon and a wide ballroom far away from them.

Kageyama moves, arms wrapping around him tighter. His breath is even, steady. He’s fast asleep again. Hinata slings one of his arms around Kageyama’s waist, holds onto his shirt with his free hand and curls into his embrace. He doesn’t smell of expensive soap at all anymore, none of those exotic kinds of things. Now it’s more of freshly baked bread he bakes every morning for when the tavern opens or like the wooden drawer his clothes are carelessly stuffed in. His hands aren’t cold anymore, mostly at a medium sort of temperature, rough skin and covered in cuts. 

One thing hasn’t changed though. Hinata still thinks Kageyama has a beautiful face and though it’s pouts and frowns and wrinkled eyebrows, he finds those a lot more appealing - albeit scary when directed at him - than the one he saw through the mask back then. 

He squeezes Kageyama and earns a murmur, curling up into his embrace and dozing off for a while longer to the calming rhythm of Kageyama’s heart close to his ear. 

\---

“How the hell am I supposed to know how to tie a knot like that?” Kageyama’s expression darkened and Hinata would have been scared if he didn’t know it this well by now. It had been two months ever since they left the capital with no occurrences. No one to follow them, no one to mess with them aside from a few robbers but they had picked the wrong victims with Kageyama who turned out to be a very skilled archer and Hinata who used to kill people _as a profession_. He couldn’t blame them for not getting the notice yet - in fact, he was happy they simply turned out to be stupid bandits on the run and not any kind of guards, or worse, his old assassin group. 

Hinata sighed, and grabbed the rope from Kageyama’s hands. It wasn’t that difficult but then again he doesn’t think they had ever been taught in the palace to do simple things like these. “I’ll show you so watch. It’ll be handy for all sorts of things.”

His hands moved automatically without explaining much but making noises nobody would have seen through - aside from Kageyama. He nodded, and mimicked whatever Hinata had showed him earlier. Unsurprisingly, he managed it perfectly. 

“You sure learn pretty quickly,” Hinata said with a hint of slight envy. If only he’d been that quick of a learner. At least his instincts had never let him down. 

“I never got much else to do before. I taught myself a few things.” Kageyama fiddled with the knot and pulled at the ends, apparently studying how to pull it tighter or make it loose again. Hinata had noticed before but Kageyama was a very vigilant observer, absorbing whatever he could need in order to survive. He’d been worried for nothing before, going over and over possibilities to protect Kageyama - just to ultimately having found out that Kageyama planned on doing that very well by himself. Hinata had been under the impression of keeping an eye on a former king but omitted thinking about the fact that Kageyama had resented nothing more than that. It’d take him a while to get used to that but he was certain he liked Kageyama much better like this.

“Like what?” 

“Like archery. Or baking. Cooking, too. I wasn’t allowed to do that myself but I usually sneaked into the kitchen at night.” There was something Hinata imagined to be a smile on Kageyama’s face.

“Really? Did you eat it all by yourself?” Hinata snorted at the thought of Kageyama in an apron, humming while he was preparing food. How weird a thought, almost weirder than thinking that this sort of soft expression suited Kageyama just fine. 

“Nah,” he replied and shook his head, “I ate some of it and left it in the kitchen. There was a huge uproar over the mystery cook but it seemed like everyone liked the extra meals.”

“Did you tell them? That it was you?” 

It took a while until Kageyama replied, rubbing his neck slightly with fingers pressing down his scar without noticing. “I don’t think that would have been a good idea. Like this, at least they enjoyed the food after they found out it wasn’t poisoned.”

“Fine then,” Hinata said and jumped up, startling Kageyama, “We’ll find a place where you can bake and cook and everyone will praise you for it and you’ll see all of their happy faces right in front of you! You’ll see! I’m sure we’ll come across some sort of place where you could do that! An inn or… a tavern or something like that!”

“What--- wait, I---”

“It’d make you happy, right?” Hinata’s gaze rested upon Kageyama with conviction. “Then we’ll aim for a place like that.”

Kageyama averted his eyes, ears glowing red even in the darkness of the night. “You’re a dumbass.”

\---

Kageyama keeps on grumbling, his entire weight on Hinata. He doesn’t even hold onto him, it’s simply his cheek laying flat on top of Hinata’s head, arms thrown over Hinata’s shoulders loosely. Talk about spoilt. 

“Why do I always have to bind your apron anyway? I showed you how to tie it properly without it slipping off you. Or maybe,” Hinata snickers, grin covering his face, “You could get one of those frilly yellow ones that cover your chest too. I’m sure Sugawara-san still has one or two of them.”

“Shut up,” is Kageyama’s only reply and he doesn’t make an effort to fight back more. It’s less about the frills, Hinata remembers, it’s more about not being able to move properly. Or so Kageyama said before. 

It’s the same every morning. Kageyama might be sluggish but he does get out of bed by himself, gets dressed, tidies himself up a little but the apron around his waist is always something he wants Hinata to do. Hinata knows it’s not because he can’t do it by himself. The reason is as simple as Kageyama. He wants to be closer to Hinata for longer and it requires Hinata to wrap his arms around him. 

What an idiot. As if he wouldn’t do it regardless. But it’s fine if he wants to indulge himself every once in a while. Even if Hinata protests every morning anew, he welcomes it. Never binds it standing behind Kageyama for the same reason. 

He guesses they are both pretty simple. 

“There you go,” he says when the straps are neatly tied into a firm knot. And as always, he closes the narrow distance between them, giving Kageyama a squeeze and presses a kiss onto the crook of his neck, scar only slightly visible anymore. “Don’t slack off today or I’ll get an extra portion of omelette when we close up.”

“Like hell you do.”

Hinata knows he will. Not because Kageyama will slack off but because they will both work too hard for one portion to be enough in the evening. Tending a kitchen is difficult - almost impossible for Hinata to understand how Kageyama could do it with such ease - but tending the guests isn’t that easy either. Enjoyable, certainly, to listen to their stories, reciprocate their smiles, give regards to the cook (that’s his favourite thing to do). 

But at the end of the day, it feels nice to drop into the same bed afterwards, closing the distance between each other, entangle their legs for it to be almost impossible to turn around freely until their breaths even out, hearts beating in a same steady rhythm. 

And the next morning would start the same all over again. It’s fine like that. 

It’s home, like that, finally. 

\---

When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a room entirely unfamiliar to him. Very small, very dark, a candle lighting it up, nothing more. The last thing Hinata remembered was that he had been feeling ill, dizzy, that him and Kageyama were outside but not much more than that. Had he passed out?

He was feeling better though, nausea and headache gone along with parts of his memories of that as it seemed. When he tried to sit up, he found something weighing him back down onto the thin mattress. Turning his head around, he found Kageyama laying right next to him, arm wrapped around him firmly. 

He was asleep from the sound of his breath, heavy but even. Hinata could tell after almost a year of travelling across the countries with Kageyama that he was a quiet sleeper, didn’t move much - and he was surprisingly clingy. He’d found that out fairly early into their travels with Kageyama naturally drawing closer to him. It never bothered Hinata. The warmer, the cozier - the better he could sleep as well. Like this, without any awkward talks or feelings, they had always found themselves waking up pressed against each other, naturally so. 

Kageyama grumbled when Hinata slid in closer to him, arms tightening around him. “Hinata?”

He simply hummed back, tongue too heavy to reply properly. 

“Are you awake?”

Another hum, forehead leaning against Kageyama’s chest. He was warmer than usually. 

“Are you feeling alright? You collapsed on the way to this village. Is it any better? Are you still dizzy?” He whispered but there was genuine concern in his voice. It made Hinata giggle. It wasn’t in the slightest because he found it funny or amusing - it was fond, in surprise. No one had worried about him in years. It felt refreshing. 

“Don’t laugh, you idiot, I got really scared!” Kageyama hissed between his teeth and buried his face in Hinata’s hair. His breath felt hot on his scalp, filled him with warmth. 

“I’m fine,” Hinata snickered back, unable to stop grinning. “It’s not like I died, I’m still here. I probably just got a little cold. It happens when you’re travelling. I’m surprised it never caught any of us before.”

“How could I have known. You looked terrible.” Kageyama squeezed him a little tighter. It _was_ just the two of them after all, travelling to the farthest point on their map to find somewhere to settle. Away from castles and underground gangs, away from whatever they had in their lives before they found each other. “You didn’t answer me anymore, you didn’t wake up either, I---”

“I’m fine,” Hinata repeated as he snuggled into Kageyama’s chest. “Sorry I didn’t tell you I was feeling kinda weird. I thought I could manage until we get to the next village. ...Oh yeah, where are we anyway?”

“Closest inn I found,” Kageyama breathed. His heart was racing. “I didn’t know where else to go so I asked for help here and the owner said we should stay until you wake up. He called a doctor, then, to see what’s wrong with you.”

“A cold?”

“A cold.”

Hinata snickered again. “You panicked for nothing.”

“Wh- You would have done the same, dumbass!”

“Well, yeah. Probably. Since you never know what you could get. Thanks, Kageyama.”

He huffed and pulled Hinata closer even, close enough for it to be hard to breathe. He wasn’t asleep and neither was Hinata but they were still like this. And it didn’t feel like it was off in the slightest. If anything, nothing had ever felt more natural to Hinata than this. He belonged there, Kageyama did and suddenly, he found that even if they were to never settle down anywhere at all, it wouldn’t matter much. Because Kageyama had become his home by now, in this new life he’d started, and that was something that wouldn’t change - not in a year, not in two and not in ten, no matter what. 

\---

“So you two are living here now with Suga, right?” 

The man opposite of them takes a large gulp of Suga’s homemade mead - something even Hinata likes to drink occasionally because it’s specifically sweet and not as bitter as other alcohol. He doesn’t want to remember the time when Kageyama, Suga and him celebrated the tavern getting more lively again - all three of them getting drunk enough to wake up with the worst headaches in the morning. Lessons learnt. 

“Yeah. We’ve been staying here for a year,” Hinata says and grins over to Kageyama. It still feels somewhat surreal, considering they had been travelling for no less than two and a half years before they found a proper place to stay. 

“I see. He told me that you two saved his family business. He’s really grateful for that, you know. I can’t believe you’d just invest all of your money into a tavern like this, though - and not even expect to be the owners but rather just work here.” Daichi empties the mug with another sip and seems content enough - for now. An old friend of Suga’s, apparently he had been gone for two years. Went to war as a knight and came back when it was lost. “It’s very humble. You don’t see that often anymore.”

“Is it?” Kageyama’s confusion is as genuine as ever, Hinata going along with him immediately. 

“Humble? Wouldn’t it have been rude to force Sugawara-san to give us his tavern? We just wanted some place to stay and work and this seemed like a nice one. Right, Kageyama?” He turns to Kageyama who nods complacently, arms crossed in front of his chest. “After all, this is family business, you said it yourself! It wouldn’t be the same if we had taken it over!”

Daichi doesn’t hide his surprise in his expression, much to Hinata’s bewilderment and Kageyama’s as well. Was it… that weird? Had they done it wrong? “Ah, yes, I suppose so. ...Most people these days would rather be out for the money they’d make themselves, you know. Like…” Daichi gestures, looking for words but he doesn’t seem to find them, waves the part off and chuckles. “Never mind. I guess you both haven’t ever seen it from that kind of perspective. I’m glad you helped Suga though. Honestly, thank you.”

Hinata glances over to Kageyama, looking more puzzled than ever about Daichi’s words but they both nod out of courtesy and a lack of words as to what to say. Thankfully, Daichi keeps on talking. 

“It’s like you were godsend, popping up out of nowhere with enough gold to save an entire installment that is as old as this village.” He laughs and lifts his mug to his lips, eyebrows wrinkling when he realizes the lack of wine with a small sigh. “I’m surprised why two men as young as you would come to a village like this. All the younger folks have left long ago, either to go to war or for the city.”

Kageyama leans over the counter, slides Hinata the bottle of wine who swiftly fills in another mug for Daichi. Over the year, they had both gotten used to this sort of special treatment for late night guests. Though it’s mostly Hinata talking to them and Kageyama listening but still, they quietly help each other fulfil every last guest’s wish. Daichi nods once with a smile. “Thanks. You seem well attuned. You’ve been together for a long time, I assume?”

“Our whole life,” they both say in unison, meeting each other’s eyes with slight surprise. Then again, it shouldn’t be. It’s true after all. Their new life had started with meeting each other and they’d always been by each other’s side ever since. Hinata bites down his lower lip in an attempt to keep himself from smiling. It doesn’t work too well. 

A hearty laugh escapes Daichi’s lips as he gulps down almost the entire mug in one go. “Is that so? You must have gone through a lot with each other then. It’s good you had one another through times like those. That isn’t to be taken for granted. There aren’t many who have the chance to experience a relationship as strong as this. I feel like you draw luck to yourselves wherever you go.”

There is a second where Hinata is certain that his heart simply stops. Lucky, blessed, fortunate, free, happy - none of those were words he would have related to his life. When his eyes lock onto Kageyama’s, he knows that the other thinks the same. Neither of them had been any of those until they met each other. 

Until they became home to each other.

**Author's Note:**

> if you want to ask where suga was in the last scene: he probably went to bed, that lazy asshole (jk he cleans up the kitchen in the evening but i could picture him being as easy-going. sometimes. oh suga)


End file.
